TY - JOUR
AU - Schill,, W.-B.
AB - Abstract Smoking and varicocele are frequent findings in the medical history and physical examination of patients attending and rological outpatient departments. However, data about their influence on human semen parameters, such as sperm concentration and motility, are contradictory. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine sperm function (acrosin activity and induction of the acrosome reaction) in smokers (n = 130) and varicocele patients (n = 30)compared with normal fertile donors (n = 20). The acrosomere action was detected by triple staining after 3 h ofincubation at 37°C, followed by treatment with 0.1%dimethyl sulphoxide (spontaneous acrosome reaction) and 10 μM calcium ionophore A23187 (induced acrosome reaction) for 1 h at 37°C. Acrosin activity was measured by gelatinolysis. The diameters around the sperm heads after gelatinolysis and the percentages of spermatozoa showinghalo formations were evaluated. The inducibility of the acrosome reaction was significantly lower in semen samples from smokers than in those from the fertile group (7.1 ±3.2 versus 11.2 ± 4.0%, P < 0.01), whereas no statistically significant difference was demonstrated in spermatozoa from patients with varicocele (9.3 ± 4.3%). Both the percentages of spermatozoa with halo formation (53.3 ±20.0 versus 76.6 ± 13.6%, P < 0.05) and the halo diameters (16.1 ± 6.6 versus 31.0 ± 14.5 urn, P < 0.001) were significantly lower in the varicocele group than in thesamples from fertile men. These data suggest that smoking and varicocele affect sperm function, and that the standard semen parameters alone are insufficient to evaluate the influence of both factors on human male fertility. acrosin activity, acrosome reaction, human sperrnatozoa, smokers, varicocele This content is only available as a PDF. © Oxford University Press
TI - The effect of smoking and varicocele on human sperm acrosin activity and acrosome reaction
JF - Human Reproduction
DO - 10.1093/oxfordjournals.humrep.a135885
DA - 1995-12-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/the-effect-of-smoking-and-varicocele-on-human-sperm-acrosin-activity-dATlN4xOF8
SP - 3190
EP - 3194
VL - 10
IS - 12
DP - DeepDyve
ER -